An Interview With Hard Rock Band ARMADA!

The debut EP from the Florida rock band, Armada was released last month. Entitled “Of An Ocean”, the group features ex-members of Modern Day Escape, I Woke Up Early For My Funeral and others.

ARMADA consists of JERIMIAH JAMES (vocals), TEE JAY (guitar), RYAN DANLEY (guitar), MIKE FERRELL (bass) and JOSH LOUGH (drums).

 Learn more about Armada in the following All Access interview with their vocalist, Jerimiah:

Now that we are entering the fall of 2016, what are some words you would use to describe this year? What have been some of the highlights for the band?

I’d say hectic or busy since we have only been a “official band” for about 8 months-ish now and things have been moving quickly to say the least for Armada and our personal lives. Highlights would be playing live shows again, it’s been a little while since some of us has played live so to get our feet wet again has been stressfully awesome, flying out to Cleveland to record the record was a lot of fun, its always a good time to see my family and friends out there. I am really into the “merch game” like the visual art side of things so its cool to imagine a design in my head and then have it come to life on a tee shirt and watch fans wear it proudly.

Growing up, did you all always want to be musicians? Can you recall your earliest musical memories?

For me I wanted to be a deep sea treasure hunter/Marine Biologist like Jacques Cousteau and explore the ocean and sea life that is, until I saw the music video for song “pure energy” by Information society, it blew my child like mind! I knew at that moment I NEEDED to have a multi colored mowhak and I NEEDED to rock the world, so i cried to my mom until she dyed my hair with Kool-Aid so i could look kick ass like them!

How did this band first come together? How did you come up with your band name?

Well, it was a slow moving process at first, ill make this as quick as I can…..I met Tj and josh on craigslist and joined up and sang in there band for like 3 weeks and decided the band was cabbage so I told them to come with me and to start a new band. So we scouted bassists and couldn’t find any except some guy named mike and he was cool but josh said he wasn’t a very good player and he was too short so we passed on him. (Laughter) Then my friend Stephanie hit me up and said this guy Ryan’s band just split up so I called him and convinced him to come try out and it worked out great, then we called Mike back because we were desperate for a bassist and no one was working out and it turns out he is an amazing bassist and now one of my best friends. As for the band name, we went through quite a few before we came up with Armada, like (Fuse to fire, Dead fuse,Vail armada etc.…)

A few of you were in other bands like Modern Day Escape and I Woke Up Early For My Funeral. How different is being in Armada from those other groups?

Light years of a difference for many of reasons, first off the music is completely different and more mature than anything I’ve done before and more real and from the heart. Imagery for this act is very in depth and heavy, the members personalities are extremely different. This project is over all completely different in every aspect of any of our past projects.

You recently released your EP, “Of An Ocean.” Can you talk about the inspiration for this collection? What was it like putting it together?

For me personally the last 10 years of my career and the learning process of success and failure was a huge drive of the content that went into this record, I tried not to hold back how I felt about anything and lay it out on tape. I have a lot of struggles with anxiety and feeling exiled and i really try to send a positive message to anyone out there who feels the same. As for putting it together we would record all the music here in Florida at our home studios and all the screaming in my home studio and then i would fly out to Cleveland, Ohio and track all the clean singing and post production/mixing and mastering with our producer Don Debiase at Studio D inside the Lava recording room.

Who are some of your favorite artists and what bands continue to inspire you and your music? Who would you still love to work with in the future?

I would say some of my personal favorite artists would be Michael Huntchence of INXS, David Bowie, Bert Mccracken of The Used or Buddy Neilson of Senses Fail.

As for any artist to work with, Armada as a unit I think is pretty happy to work with almost anyone, we don’t have a specific act or genre we just enjoy playing shows or working with all natures of folk in the industry or at least ones that are not rude or sketchy. (Laughter)

Where can people see Armada perform next? Do you have a fall tour scheduled?

We don’t have a tour set up just yet, touring is very expensive so we are waiting to see what offers come along that are financially sound for us to take.

At the end of the day, what do you hope is the message of your music? What do you hope listeners take away from your songs?

Honestly… STRENGTH and HONESTY, we hope that our music comforts our listeners and that they understand to embrace there scars and to not be afraid of who they are.

Is there anything else that you would like to share with our readers about yourselves or your music?

Yes, please head over to iTunes or Spotify to check out our music or check out our big cartel page to grab some merch. Other than that thanks for the interview and thanks to our listeners and fans.